1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to image processing, and more particularly to a system and method for segmenting and counting cells in a microscopic image.
2. Description of Related Art
Images of cells available from 2D and 3D microscopy (and other sources) are increasingly commonplace. For many different applications it is important to analyze the images by segmenting the cells in an image from the background and each other. This segmentation is often a precursor to cell counting or classification (via cell shape, color, etc.) that may be used to answer a variety of diagnostic questions. There are a number of software packages available on the market to perform automatic cell count, however these packages are highly specialized towards a specific type of microscopic images and do now allow further analyses. Furthermore, many of them require additional hardware equipment and installation, and may be quite expensive. Examples of such software include MACE (Mammalian Cell Colony Analysis—Weiss Associates), Bio-Optics Corp., Guava Technologies, Nexcelom Bioscience, New-Brunswick Scientific, Dako Corp, QM Solutions, Partec Corp, Synoptics Inc, and others.
Therefore, a need exists for generalized method for image segmentation of microscopic images.